Global: County officials hadn’t previously voiced concerns

Global Partners, the company that’s seeking to add four steam boilers and three heaters to its Albany terminal, said late Wednesday that Albany County officials hadn’t expressed any concerns about those plans previously, and hadn’t asked to meet with the company on the project.

The company was reacting to county officials’ plans to put a moratorium on the project while the county studies the health and environmental risks posed by the expansion.

Global’s terminal at the Port of Albany is a major transshipment point for the movement of Bakken crude from North Dakota to refineries along the East Coast. The company has said it wants to install the heating equipment to help the crude flow more easily from rail tank cars to storage tanks.

“Global will continue its operations in Albany, and will continue to work with federal, state and local officials, and the community, as well as our employees, customers, railroads and other partners, to ensure the safety of our operations,” said Edward J. Faneuil, Global Partners executive vice president.

He also said the company would “continue implementing a public outreach program focused on providing information to the community” about the boiler project. “Global’s proposed project does not seek to expand the permitted storage capacity or total volume of petroleum products received at the facility and transported from the facility,” Faneuil added.

But a spokeswoman for Albany County Executive Daniel P. McCoy pointed out that he and other officials had previously expressed concerns in a letter Jan. 24th to Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joseph Martens about Global’s expansion.

“(W)e believe that a more comprehensive, public and transparent review of the company’s plan is required,” McCoy wrote in a letter to Martens.
McCoy was joined in the request by Colonie Town Supervisor Paula Mahan, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan, Menands Mayor Megan Grenier, Cohoes Mayor George Primeau, and Watervliet Mayor Mike Manning.

Meanwhile, members of People of Albany United for Safe Energy (PAUSE) rallied in front of the Department of Environmental Conservation headquarters Thursday requesting a full environmental impact statement be required for the expansion of Global’s terminal at the port.

Posters called for officials to “Ban the Bomb Trains” and “Don’t Get Boiled in Oil.” The organization has raised concerns about how close trains carrying Bakken crude travel to neighborhoods in the Capital Region. Federal regulators have warned that the Bakken crude is far more flammable and dangerous than originally thought.

6 Responses

It’s my understanding that a majority of the Albany County legislators signed a proclamation criticizing Global’s port project and asking the County Health Department to look into the issue (I haven’t seen the proclamation).

Several county legislators expressed serious concerns at the public meeting held by DEC in mid-February about Global’s proposed oil heating facility, and at least one representative of Global was at that meeting. It’s hard to see how Global could come up with a statement that “Albany County officials hadn’t expressed any concerns” previously.

Mr. Faneuil, Global Partners,
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Welcome to politics, Albany County style. It took County Executive Dan McCoy’s campaign handlers several weeks to realize that he could project himself as a leader, politically speaking, by capitalizing on the quandary vocal residents of the South End have created for you. This is all about McCoy’s efforts to get himself reelected in 2015, hopefully, without opposition from either a really legitimate Democrat or GOP opponent.

Amazing how the “moratorium” (such as it is) on building the boilers and heaters is somehow being transitioned into a campaign of “concern trolling” about rail cars carrying shale oil. This is an example of a non-sequitur; one subject has nothing at all to do with the other that is being allegedly linked. The oil trains are going to continue transiting the port carrying their loads of Bakken crude; the stuff causing the blowouts and fires. The blocked heaters, however, would be used to simplify the transfer of Alberta bitumen from rail car to tank farm to barge. The latter is known to the enviro-whacko contingent among us as “tar sands”. It has very different properties from Bakken crude such as it is a near solid at ambient temperatures. Accordingly its flammability is far lower and rare instances of spills are easily contained due to its extreme viscosity. No heaters means more Bakken with its lower flashpoint and higher flammability. This populist “know nothing” approach to what should be a normal, deliberative business decision involving the company and local officials has exited the realm of sublime and is now a total farce.

Excellent post- perhaps you can take Dano McCoy out for a drink sometime and explain to him that there actually benefits to heating the crude. Oh, and that millions of gallons of petroleum products have been stored, and transported through the Port of Albany for 100 years- I don’t think he knew that.

Also, please explain to him that there is significant flammable fuels being stored and transferred over in his airport, right next to very large neighborhoods.